There really isn't much that these situations have in common. Bayonetta was a game that gained great word of mouth after release, and eventually went on to sell over a million units. As a new franchise there was plenty of potential for a sequel to then go and outperform the original (something I'm completely convinced it would have done, had it been released on the same platforms as the original).
Except it didn't. If you're going to bring up "analysis of market potential" to show how Nintendo would have no interest in Sega games that underperform in sales, this is a prime example, if not THE prime example, that shows there are other considerations that have to be made beyond that. It was a mindshare opportunity, plain and simple.
It was also very likely to have had substantial work invested into it before Nintendo picked it up (same could probably be said about Devil's Third).
Yeah... on other platforms. When you move to a new platform, not all the work is universally carried over. There's still an opportunity cost that has to be factored in, and they still don't market themselves.
Yakuza and Virtua Fighter aren't like this at all. They're not new IPs with undetermined potential. They're both series that have plenty of data showing that they've peaked in the past, and are unlikely to show and real growth in the future.
Yakuza plateaued long ago, and has no pull outside of Japan whatsoever. There have been more than enough entries to draw out a very clear trajectory here. It doesn't have the potential Bayonetta 2 had, and worse still the Wii U saw a release of Yakuza 1 & 2 HD in Japan, which flopped spectacularly. This release was apparently a sales experiment, and needless to say, the results weren't exactly positive.
So you're now using these titles as specific cases instead of rough touchstones to make a broader point? OK. In that case, yeah, you're right, Yakuza specifically might not survive the transition with continued output. It's a good thing that it's not the only IP Sega has, despite their recent output suggesting the contrary.
Virtua Fighter hasn't seen a completely new entry in a decade, and it's most recent revision had muted impact despite being given away as a PS+ title.
Oh gee, a revision of a 5-year-old game not having the same traction as a new release? Can't imagine why not.
Nintendo's also already seen Tekken (a far larger, comparable IP) go mostly ignored on their console compared to the other platforms it released on.
You mean the launch title Tekken game that had already been released on every other console months before, consoles that people likely already owned for several years? Yeah, can't imagine what happened there.
Strong third party support needs to be established before attempting to pull exclusives for ongoing IPs, because in many cases there's significant overlap within genres. If a fan of fighting games will need to purchase the competition's console for the next Tekken, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur etc, then securing Virtua Fighter as an exclusive will do more harm to that franchise than it will be a benefit to Nintendo's platform.
How much more harm can be done to a franchise that, by your own admission, hasn't seen a full re-iteration in almost 10 years? Honest question.
Let's also keep in mind that Nintendo's already-existing titles and some 3rd-party titles don't appear to suffer being separated from other games in their genre. Didn't stop Xenoblade from being the most lauded RPG of the generation and earning a sequel, for instance. TatsuCap exceeded expectations on Wii despite its extreme dirth of fighters and was confirmed a commercial success by Capcom in spite of it being on a single platform. Outside of that, SFV is exclusing to PS4, despite there being a fighting game audience on Xbox One, as well. So I have trouble seeing how separation from other platforms with a selection of games in the same genre is
inherently a bad thing.
Specific to Virtua Fighter, as long as Nintendo partners with an arcade company like Bandai Namco (which we know they have done in the past with great success), Virtua Fighter can still live on in arcades, so nothing is lost there except console multi-plat.
There are a lot of steps Nintendo would need to make long before stuff like this would make any sense... and I would be very wary of the motivations of anyone that'd want to see these kinds of scenarios happen, as I'd have my doubts that they really have the IPs best interests in mind.
Yeah, now that Sega Sammy is completely scaling back their arcade and console development year over year until it's gone and the developers are totally scattered to the winds, better that franchises and IPs go unused entirely than to see some actual opportunity to do something with them. What could I have been thinking? I should preserve the sanctity of their complete irrelevance instead, my mistake. That sounds like a much superior idea.
Sony with Ratchet and Clank, and Activision with other stuff show that you dont need to be nintendo to succeed on "platformish childish games", by making exclusive deals with nintendo whose fans only think of nintendo, they started digging their own grave (but the game themselves weren't even good, but they kind of forgot what made Sonic games special)
